Educational websites are nervously falling into line. They know the tide is turning

You may remember me describing the education system as "broken". Soon, that will be no more. Those on both sides of the debate have argued that I am wrong, that the system is just fine, that either way only a few schools are failing their children – or even that it isn’t the system, it’s those lazy good-for-nothing teachers who are failing most of our kids.

But when faced with evidence that the standard of the 2010 GCSE paper is clearly well below papers from 1989, or indeed the old O level papers stretching back to eternity, when seeing just how wrong Ofsted gets it when judging behaviour in schools – that "good" at Darwen High School means absolutely nothing – or when digesting the fact that half of our country’s children don’t get 5 GCSEs with English and Maths, and 84 per cent of them don’t get 5 C grades in academic subjects, the argument on both sides begins to look distinctly weak: if the system isn’t "broken", it is certainly deeply flawed.

But the tide is turning. I have never in my life witnessed such a massive shift in national culture and expectation. The edifice is falling. Teachernet’s site has come down. It has been "decommissioned". Until very recently, it was: “The UK government gateway for educational professionals. Offers teaching and learning resources, management tools, career advice, research and an education.”

Teachers are on there all of the time. Teachernet is not the only site to change. Look at any educational website these days, the schools, the quangos, the DfE, the charities, even the teacher unions themselves. They’ve all changed their websites and their tunes. They are all falling into line so that they can fit into the new culture regime.

My argument has always been that good teachers and Heads have to work against the system in order to succeed. Once upon a time, teachers had children shouting "24-hour notice" in their faces when giving out detentions. Heads would have their decisions to exclude children overturned by over-zealous appeal panels. Heads had no right to discipline children out in the street, and teachers couldn’t search for weapons in children’s bags.

Now change is in the air. On that fateful day in October when I stood at the Conservative Party conference, I said I only hoped that there was enough courage in Michael Gove and David Cameron to glue our education system back together. It would seem that Gove has far more than courage. He has the capacity to change the system.

Now teachers can no longer be maliciously accused by a pupil without possible repercussions for the child. Teachers can now use reasonable force with a child to prevent him from committing an offence, hurting another child or damaging property. Finally, teachers can "touch" a child, something they were banned from doing before. Imagine, a child is crying and teachers could not even give the child a hug! Parents are now increasingly required to exercise their legal duties,. and are being held responsible for their child’s behaviour.

The SYSTEM is being changed and as a result, the entire teaching profession is falling into line. Soon, my critics will be quite right in their claim that the system isn’t broken. Michael Gove is cleverly gluing it back together. Soon, when he points his finger at failing schools and shouts ‘J’accuse’, he won’t have me standing in his way insisting that it is the system that ties our hands. No. If he keeps going as he’s doing, soon, the system won’t be broken at all, and we can then blame the teachers.